


The King of Ghosts

by SpiritsFlame



Category: Danny Phantom, Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Danny Phantom AU, Ghost!AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-09
Updated: 2014-10-09
Packaged: 2018-02-20 13:38:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2430794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpiritsFlame/pseuds/SpiritsFlame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Percy isn’t sure if he’s dead or alive. He isn’t sure if he can trust the King of Ghosts. He isn’t sure if Nico knows who he is or not. Percy’s not really sure of anything, anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The King of Ghosts

The King of Ghosts is not what Percy was expecting. The way the other ghosts spoke, Percy had expected, well, another ghost, for one thing. Someone who was powerful and terrifying and, perhaps most of all, cruel.

He had not been expecting Nico Di Angelo, the resident weirdo of Casper High. Or, well, maybe that title should fall to Percy now- his recent inability to entirely maintain a corporeal form hadn't exactly made him any new friends.

Nico just raises an eyebrow at him, and Percy isn't sure whether he should be relieved or irritated that Nico doesn't recognize him. Probably relieved. That's what Annabeth would tell him, anyway. And, well, he and Nico haven't always had an easy relationship. Or, Percy and Nico haven't. He doesn't know about the Phantom and Nico.

“You're, ah,” Percy falters, clears his throat. “You're the ghost king?”

Nico just cocks his head at him. He looks different here. Cool, collected. At school he hunches in clothes that never seem to fit, and he never meets anyone's eyes. Here, he is confident, strong. He crosses his arms over his chest and meets Percy's eyes calmly. Not even Grover can do that when Percy goes ghost- the eerie way that they glow freaks everyone out.

“Were you expecting someone else?” Nico asks, and even his voice is different.

“Well, yeah.”

“What were you expecting?”

Percy crosses his arms defensively. “A ghost, for one thing. With a, you know,” he gestures around his head. “pointy crown, or something.”

Nico snorts a laugh. “Sorry to disappoint.”

It's on the tip of Percy's tongue to say that he's not disappointed, but Nico wouldn't understand. He floats uncertainly, biting his lip instead.

“I heard you were looking for me?” Nico prompts, cocking out a hip as he watches Percy. It draws the eye, and Percy suddenly realises that Nico has a lethal looking black sword at his hip. Percy is willing to put money on the fact that it will cut a hole through a ghost just as easily as Riptide does.

“Well, sort of? I mean, I was looking for the King of Ghosts. You're not-”

Nico's face hardens. “And you found me. So tell me what you want in my town, and then get out.”

Percy opens his mouth to explain, but Nico stops him. “And come down here. I won't hurt you if you don't hurt me, and I'm not going to shout at you.”

Reluctantly, Percy drifts closer. He's uneasy about getting near, in case Nico recognizes him. No one else has, but, well, Nico has always been good at surprising him. And that was before Percy knew about, well, this.

“I was going to ask if you could keep your ghosts out of Amity Park.”

“Was?” Nico's eyes are sharp on his face.

Percy shrugs. “If you're human-”

“Then either I can't, or I won't?” Nico finishes, and Percy nods. “I'm trying. It's not as easy as it sounds.”

It's Percy's turn to laugh, harsh and bitter. “I know.”

Nico just looks at him, steady and sure. “I'd heard someone else was throwing ghosts back into the Ghost zone. You weren't what I was expecting.”

Percy can't help but laugh at that, but he doesn't, won't, give an explanation. “Well, thanks anyway.”

He starts to drift up, hoping to get just far enough away to phase back, but Nico stops him.

“Wait.”

Percy turns back, but doesn't move any closer. His heart is racing, which is stupid. In this form, with his white hair and glowing eyes, he doesn't have a heartbeat. It's all his head.

“You're not a ghost.”

Percy feels his heart sink through his incoporeal stomach. He makes a show of looking down at his body, half transparent, floating six feet off the ground. “I'm pretty sure you're wrong about that.”

Nico frowns at him. “You don't feel right. You don't feel dead.”

Percy has to close his eyes for a moment, shoving down all the emotions that prompts. He doesn't know much about Nico, about what he can do or who he is, or how he's become the King of Ghosts, but somehow he trusts him. He trusts whatever Nico's feelings are. And if he's not dead, like he's been so afraid of for months and months, then what is he?

But he's not dead. And that's something.

Percy flies away without answering. He's not sure he could have said anything anyway.

–

The second time that Percy meets the King of Ghosts, it's something of a mess. To be fair, it's mostly Percy's mess. He'd gotten it into his head to take on three ghosts at once, and was only barely holding his own when Nico comes in.

“Are you always this much of an idiot?” Nico calls up to him. He's got his dark sword out, and somehow Percy isn't surprised that he knows how to use it.

“Probably yes,” Percy shouts back. He shoots an ectoblast at one of the closer ghosts and misses by a hair. On the ground, one of the ghosts goes after Nico and gets a sword through it's chest through the trouble. The undead shrieks aren't any less unsettling when someone else causes them.

The next ectoblast that Percy shoots hits the second ghost in the chest, and Percy punches the air in triumph. He's getting better at this. When he glances down to see if Nico had seen it (not that he cared,) he sees the last ghost going after him.

Percy dives, about to push Nico out of the way. Then Nico stands straight and holds his hand out in front of him.

It's like hitting a wall of jello, slow and sticky, and Percy freezes as much from shock as anything else. The other ghost is worse off than he is, frozen solid. Only Nico is unaffected, moving though the empty space between him and the ghost with no effort at all.

Percy makes himself move closer, feeling his muscles protesting. It's hard work, and slow, and for a moment, Percy doesn't think he'll get there in time.

It turns out he doesn't need to. Percy reaches Nico's side just as Nico finishes off the third ghost, still immobilized by an invisible power.

“What the hell was that?” Percy asks, startled and impressed. He thinks about Nico like he'd seen him this morning, head down, hands almost hidden in the sleeves of his hand-me-down clothes. He can hardly believe this is the same person.

Nico rounds on him, surprise clear on his face. “How did you do that?”

Percy looks down at himself, then back up to Nico. “Do what?”

“Move! You shouldn't have been able to- what are you?”

Percy gives Nico his most charming smile. “I'm just your friendly neighborhood ghost.”

He flies away before Nico can reply, but when he looks back, he thinks Nico might be smiling.

–

“What's eating you, Jackson?”

Percy looks up when a shadow falls across his eyes. The bleachers aren't comfortable, but they're mostly deserted, even at lunch. He hadn't expected to see Nico here. He should have know better.

“Nothing.”

Nico snorts and drops down next to him. “Try another one.”

“It doesn't matter.”

Nico doesn't reply to that, so Percy sneaks a look over at him. Nico is staring up at the sky, lips pursed. He's wearing his too-large aviator jacket, despite the heat. Still, Percy thinks he can see the hints of the Ghost King in the set of Nico's jaw, the stubborn tilt to his chin.

“Why are you here?”

Nico glances down at him and gives a little smile. “I'm always here.”

Liar, Percy thinks. Two days ago, he'd had the ghost king's help in saving the school from a crazy ghost lunch lady.

“Your turn,” Nico prompts. “Where are your friends?”

“They're pissed at me.”

“And now you're sulking.”

Percy sits up fast. “I'm not sulking.”

Nico raises an eyebrow. It's the same face he had made when Percy had told him that he wanted to help, almost a week ago. It's the face Nico makes when he doesn't quite believe what someone tells him, and this is getting confusing.

“Shut up,” Percy mutters, and turns away. He wants to tell Nico the truth. He wants to fight with him and have Nico know who he's fighting with, who's helping him.

“Alright,” Nico says agreeably. He shrugs off his jacket and balls it up under his head, leaning back against the bleachers like Percy had. After a suspicious moment, Percy settles back with him.

They end up skipping their next class, but neither of them say a word. It's the most relaxed Percy has been in a long time.

–

“Ghost King,” Percy says. “I need your help.” He's not supposed to know who Nico is, but this is too important.

“Don't you know what time it is?” Nico knuckles sleep out of his eyes, looking grumpy and not quite awake. It makes Percy's heart do stupid things.

“Believe me, I know. But we have bigger issues.”

Bigger issues like one of the largest ghost surges since the accident. Bigger issues like there is no way that Percy can handle this on his own.

He turns away while Nico changes, glad that he can't blush in this body.

“I have school tomorrow.” Nico says.

“You're not the only one,” Percy snaps without thinking, and bites his lip. Nico doesn't say anything, and Percy hopes that Nico hadn't heard him.

When he turns around, Nico is right beside him, his dark eyes intense. “Are you ever going to tell you what you are?”

Percy steps back, almost going through the wall before he forces himself corporeal again. “I don't even know myself, dude.”

Nico studies his face carefully and Percy call feel his heart racing. “That's not what I meant.”

Percy swallows. “Come on.” He jerks his head at the window. “We'd better go.”

–

The next time, Nico comes to him first. He's already scowling, and Percy knows it's going to be bad.

“You know I hate asking for help.”

Percy feels a smile starting. “Yeah?”

Nico glares at the ground. “And-” he stops.

Percy grins. “Yeah?”

Nico aims a punch at his shoulder and it goes right through him.

“Asshole,” Nico muttered. “I need your help.”

“There you go,” Percy grins, and Nico glares. “Just tell me where to go.”

He's gotten used to flying with Nico in his arms, warm and solid against him. It's nice.

The fight is not.

–

Percy should have guessed that it would happen like this. Nico is kneeling beside him, and Percy is too tired to hold onto his ghost form. He thinks about that sometime, if it means that he's more human than ghost. But for now, he has bigger problems.

“Percy,” Nico gasps, and Percy turns his head to try and hide his face. Nico grabs his chin and pulls it around to face him.

“Sorry,” Percy says, trying for a smile.

“Percy, you fucking idiot,” Nico says, and kisses him.

It sounds stupid to say it feels like the kiss of life, from a ghost king to a boy who's half-dead, but that's the first thing that comes into his brain as his nerves spark back up. He can feel his heart racing, real and solid and thumping in his chest. He can feel the blood in his veins, heating his face. He feels so alive he wants to laugh from it.

“I'm going to kill you,” Nico says, pressing his forehead to Percy's.

“Liar,” Percy replies, like he's wanted to so many times.

Nico smiles, and Percy can't help but smile back.

**Author's Note:**

> Check out my tumblr by the same name and come say hello!


End file.
